Contextual Software

这项工作旨在推进计算机科学的一个领域，称为普适计算(Ubiomp)，旨在使移动计算机，如手机，为使用它们的人做新的有用的事情-但又非常适合每个用户的环境，以至于他或她几乎不需要考虑使用它们。例如，经常参观博物馆的游客在参观一个新城市时，可能会在手机上使用当地地图。当他路过一家新博物馆时，他的地图可能会显示，他的手机已经找到了显示博物馆当前展览的软件，并准备好让他运行。然而，ubiomp真正的问题是，人们的兴趣和背景一直在变化。人们在日常生活中，在他们选择的地方，为了自己的目的，以自己的方式使用这种技术。这使得评估变得困难，因为很难观察和理解用户不断变化的行为。反过来，这又阻碍了评估者就用户的行为、问题和需求向程序员提供建议的通常方式。例如，游客可能认为他现在已经受够了博物馆，于是跳上一辆公交车，来到城市上空的一个视点，以便观看烟花表演。因此，理想情况下，ubiomp软件应该能够适应--或被适应--这种新的使用环境，即它应该是“情景软件”。一般来说，适应太不可预测，不能自动完成，也太复杂，用户不能单独完成。这位游客不太可能根据自己的兴趣、视角、烟花表演和手机上已有的软件制作新的软件。我们认为，这需要在用户软件、评估员和程序员的可视化和工具方面取得进步，并将它们连接在一起，以便用户、评估者和程序员能够更好地相互互动。我们已经做了一些让我们领先一步的第一步：1.Domino是一个允许ubiomp用户在移动计算机之间直接共享小软件的系统。它会给出一些建议，说明哪些新软件可以与电脑上已有的软件相匹配。它的工作原理很像亚马逊的图书推荐器：“买了你买的书的人也买了……这些。”这样的软件推荐就像亚马逊的图书推荐一样容易处理。不过，我们想要改进Domino，以便它更多地基于用户的上下文，例如，用户去哪里，以及用户拥有的软件。2.RePlayer是一个让评估员和程序员可视化地显示ubiomp系统如何运行以及它过去是如何使用的系统。它会与评估者的视频、音频和文字笔记同步，“回放”系统的工作记录。我们希望将它扩展到可视化从移动计算机中涌入的信息，显示用户现在正在做什么。我们还希望将Replay与程序员用来编写新软件的工具集成在一起。然后，他们可以看到他们当前软件的详细信息，以及过去和当前使用的上下文，因为他们使用新的软件来适应用户的当前上下文和潜在的未来上下文。然后，他们可以将软件发送给在这些情况下的人们，通过Domino进行推荐。想象一下游客到达烟花表演的视点。他可能会从这个新位置的其他人那里推荐新软件(通过Domino)，然后让它在他的手机上运行。它可能会解释烟花表演，并显示在哪里可以看到他以前去过的地方。如果没有这样的新软件，或者如果他有问题，评估员和程序员可以得到通知。然后，他们可以使用Replay来分析游客手机上的背景和系统，并用适合他们的新软件做出回应。在我们的项目中，我们将第一次在ubiomp中演示情景软件，展示这种响应和适应-所有这些都是在用户进入评估员/程序员团队以前不知道的位置后一个小时内完成的。

This work aims to advance an area of computer science called ubiquitous computing (ubicomp), which aims to make mobile computers, such as mobile phones, do new and useful things for the people using them - and yet fit so well with the context of each individual user that he or she hardly needs to think about using them. For example, a tourist who often visits museums might, when visiting a new city, use a local map on his phone. When he walks past a new museum, his map might show that his phone has found software showing the museum's current exhibitions, and got it ready for him to run.However, a real problem for ubicomp is that people's interests and contexts change all the time. People use such technology in their everyday lives, in places they choose, for their own purposes and in their own ways. This makes evaluation difficult because it is hard to observe and understand users' changing behaviour. In turn, this hampers the usual way that evaluators advise programmers about users' behaviours, problems and needs. For example, the tourist might decide that he has had enough of museums for now and jump on a bus to a viewpoint high above the city, so as to view a fireworks display. Ideally, then, ubicomp software should be able to adapt - or be adapted to - such new contexts of use, i.e. it should be 'contextual software'. Generally, adaptation is too unpredictable to be done automatically and too complex for users to do alone. The tourist is unlikely to make new software tailored to his interests, the viewpoint, the fireworks display and the software already on his phone. We believe that this requires advances in users' software, in visualisations and tools for evaluators and programmers, and in connecting them all together so that user, evaluator and programmer can better interact with each other. We have made some first steps that give us a head start:1. Domino is a system that lets ubicomp users share small pieces of software directly between mobile computers. It gives recommendations as to what new software might fit with what is already on one's computer. It works rather like the Amazon book recommender: 'people who bought the books you've bought also bought... these'. Such software recommendations are as easy to handle as an Amazon book recommendation. We want to refine Domino, though, so that it bases recommendations on more of one's context, e.g. where one goes as well as the software one has. 2. Replayer is a system that lets evaluators and programmers visualise how a ubicomp system ran and how it was used in the past. It 'replays' logs of what the system did, synchronised with evaluators' video, audio and textual notes. We want to extend it to visualise information streaming in from mobile computers, showing what users are doing now. We also want to integrate Replayer with the tools programmers use to write new software. Then, they can see the details of their current software, along with past and current contexts of use, as they respond with new software to fit users' current contexts and potential future contexts. They can then send the software out to the people in those contexts, for recommendation via Domino.Imagine the tourist reaching the viewpoint for the fireworks display. He might be recommended new software from other people in this new location (via Domino), and then let it run on his phone. It might explain the fireworks display, and show where to look to see the places that he visited before. If there's no such new software, or if he has problems with it, evaluators and programmers could be informed. They could then use Replayer to analyse the context and the system on the tourist's phone, and to respond with new software that fits with them. In our project, we will demonstrate contextual software showing such responsiveness and adaptation for the first time in ubicomp - all within an hour of the user entering a location previously unknown to the evaluator/programmer team.